English Dub Review: Megalobox 2 – Nomad “La tierra prometida respondió que el mesías no se quedará”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In flashbacks, Nanbu is diagnosed with terminal lymphatic cancer, with only months to live even with extra treatment. Joe decides to take an exhibition match with Yuri’s protégé Liu to earn the prize money for the treatment despite not having been in the ring for a couple years, though Sachio accuses him of just running away to the ring.

In the present, Joe returns to the Team Nowhere building to find it completely destroyed, having been demolished in a flood. Most of the kids have been sent to orphanages aside from Sachio and his crew, who have all been forced to grow up despite still being young. Sachio himself has actually taken to Megaloboxing for Fujimaki in the underground circuit and finds Joe sleeping in the old building, beating him up for having the nerve to come back after abandoning them. After getting the rundown on things from Aragaki, Joe sets out to repair the building, first by digging up the sign.

OUR TAKE
We’re starting to figure out the sequence of events that led Joe to become such a disheveled mess at the start of this season and what he’s been up to since the glorious victory he and Team Nowhere achieved at the end of the last one. In a way, you could say it’s a bit of a meta commentary about why this season couldn’t have simply been a straight recreation of the first, and part of that comes down to Joe’s character. What pushed him through and kept him a stand out guy amongst all the other boxers back then was his unwillingness to fold or compromise his belief in himself. Where everyone he fought did so to get out anger, seek revenge, take control, or just make the next quick buck, Joe did so because he wanted to see how far he could go, giving everyone who fought with him reason to put their chips behind him and his dream. They got a gearless boxer to the top through their integrity beat the impossible.

But while that may have helped last time, it’s not going to help in all situations. Joe can’t just punch the cancer out of Nanbu, and while he could win enough money to get the treatment, it’s only going to delay the inevitable. But it’s clear that Joe isn’t hearing that when Sachio tells him basically that, putting his hopes on Nanbu making it home totally cured. Joe is in denial and retreating to what makes sense to him: training for a big fight that he’ll totally win because…because he’s Gearless Joe! What’s one more match?

Well, as we know in the present, that clearly didn’t work out and now things have pretty much gone to shit where they all used to live, and the Team Nowhere building being a wreck is a pretty apt metaphor for that. Everyone’s been forced to live with Nanbu’s death and move on, while Joe has become The Nomad, with fighting as his only real home. Even Sachio has had to become a boxer, though he clearly doesn’t have the build for it, basically putting him where Joe was back at the beginning of the series, but without the talent. But Joe is back to try and fix things now, but what if him drudging up the past is just going to do more harm than good? Find out next time as we learn exactly what happened in that fateful match.